


Should Have Seen it Coming

by goodgirlwhoshopeful



Category: Aidan Turner - Fandom, Being Human (UK), Being Human (UK) RPF, bbc - Fandom
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pre-Romance, because 01x02 gets to me, but that means early annie/mitchell fluff, feat arsehole Tully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 02:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4769576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgirlwhoshopeful/pseuds/goodgirlwhoshopeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by 01x02 "Tully" - because I could never stop thinking... what if Tully had came back for more?' and... did Mitchell and Annie love each other even then?</p>
<p>Annie / Mitchell - kinda pre-romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should Have Seen it Coming

** Should Have Seen it Coming **

She should have seen it coming.

"Oh, _gosh_." The smile Annie gave him was the same she gave to all. She'd trusted him. Was he confident? _Sure_. Arrogant? Yes – _okay_ – maybe a little. But then lots of men were – even good men... Like Mitchell. He could be arrogant too – like the way he not only knew women liked him, but almost expected it… Arrogance in men was normal… _right?_

"You made me jump..." Which is what people say when they're secretly trying to say – 'You frighten me and I wish I knew why'.

"I never see you out of those clothes," Tully had remarked, and, thinking back on it now, his suave tone should have given her all the warning she needed. 

"Yeah, well," she shrugged with an air of acceptance. "It's what I was wearing the night that I... _you know_... It's just as well I wasn't wearing a Star Trek costume," the way he was leaning into her had given her an inkling, but she hadn't wanted to believe it, so she stuttered through her funny ghost- _forever-dressed-as_ line, "or you know dressed as a.... squirrel," but the final word became a slur from her lips as Tully's hand came to tighten around her bicep without invitation. She should have known then – put a stop to it, then – but, of course, she hadn't. She had laughed it off and tried to assure herself that she was imagining things... because that was what abused women did, wasn't it?

Tully's hand tightened, as words flowed from his mouth in a tone Annie instantly knew she had not manifested in her imagination. "Oh, you're all squishy... and cold... like snow." He tightened to the point of pain, which was strange. She hadn't realise she could still... _feel_... never mind feel _pain_.  

“Look,” she tried, gently. “That actually... _hurts_." 

“How _can_ it hurt?” he taunted. The tone made her stomach roll. She once knew a man who spoke to her in nothing but a tone like that… and then one day he pushed her down the stairs. 

“Owen––“ she’s begged without thinking, suddenly back in the kitchen years before when Owen used to sneer at her just the same. _C’mon, Annie. Just a little fuck. I’m your fiancé, after all. Don’t you want me to fuck you?_  

“Wha’?” Tully questioned, as the foreign name passed her lips. His northern lilt sliced through her reverie, and suddenly she was back again. 

“–– _Tully_!” She corrected, too quickly. “Please, that–– _that hurts_."

Just like that, when she wouldn’t drop it, his easy smile returned, leaving her wondering, yet again, if she’d imagined it all… Had she? This was _Tully_. George’s _friend_ … “I’m just messing with you, kid.” 

_See?_ She chastised herself. _You imagined it. He’s just trying to be funny––his_ northern charm _, and all that._ Honestly _. Not all men are like Owen._

“Er… So, what d'you want?” She asked, probably trying too hard to be nonchalant in tone, taking a step away from him, leaving her washing up abandoned. 

“Company… A kind word… _Respect_.”

Owen’s voice rang in her ears, clear as day. _Where’s your respect, Annie?!_ She realised by now that Owen was always shouting, even when he was speaking normally…if that made sense at all. How had she not noticed? _Look at me when I’m talking to you! I said look at me!_

She should have seen it coming.

“Oh, you have those things!” she dismissed with a shrug, tidying up her abandoned washing up. _Pacify him, Annie._ That’s what she used to say to herself when Owen got angry _._

“ _No_ ––“ The word was almost sneered, but Tully’s smile remained. “What I have is a lumpy sofa, balls like concrete and _corpse_ giving me _mixed signals._ ”

At that, there was no questioning it, anymore. Stunned, unsure and somewhat panicked, Annie felt her heart in her mouth. Stricken, she began to stutter, as her breathing began to almost incapacitate her––frustrating as that was, because she _didn’t even need it._ She felt a sense of loss wash over her as Tully’s smarmy words bounced around her mind, because she knew then, she’d lost a friend. _Well,_ someone she _thought_ had been a friend… Perhaps they shouldn’t have been so quick to trust him.

"Your face…” Tully breathed, evidently amused by the offence painted all over her face. “I told you... I'm just messing with you…” Annie began to shuffle backward, no longer believing his transparent words. “Although, you _do_ have Tully's imaginations working overtime… I'm wondering what _else_ you can feel…”

In an instant, all those nights when she hadn’t been in the mood, but Owen had managed to talk her round, cornering her again this very same fridge, assaulted her senses, and she felt sick. The memories blinkered past her eyes like scenery past a speeding car and suddenly she found it hard to breathe. Not literally–– _obviously_ ––because she didn’t need to breathe at all anymore, but it certainly felt like it. 

She tried not to notice the way Tully’s face seemed to soften with satisfaction the more she stuttered and fidgeted uncomfortably… or the way that the scene unfolding before her began to blend together with her some of her most distressing memories of Owen.

She took tiny steps back, instantly scrambling for an excuse, a way out. 

“Oh no, _actually_ , it didn't _hurt_.” It was a lame excuse, but she had little else to say. “It was more like… I saw you holding my arm and it felt like...it _should_ hurt.” She gave a little shrug and a smile, the lovable expression she knew even Mitchell at his most moody couldn’t help but give into. Still, though, he moved, so she knew she had to address it. “So, _er_ , could you... what it be possible if you just moved back...just a tiny bit…?”

He didn’t. Just like Owen hadn’t. 

“Could you feel a kiss?” 

The question, apart from being completely _none_ of his business, had Annie paused in thought as she stuttered. She hadn’t really thought of that. _Could she?_ She hadn’t really attempted physical contact at all since… _since._ In fact, Tully’s grip of her arm is suddenly the only post-death touch she could recall and it turned her stomach. 

“Oh, I don't know... um––“ 

“––Could you feel a _fuck_?”

He was now so close–– _how_ had she never noticed that noxious aftershave before?! His face invading her personal space in a way no ones ever should, his scent suddenly repugnant and as threatening as his body language. If she’d been alive, she’d have gagged.

“Oh–– _gosh––_ this is making me feel _very_ uncomfortable now.” Again, it was a weak response, but she was never one with words. _Stop, Tully._ She wanted to beg. _Please stop now._

However, his next statement was filled with malicious intent, his lips puckered, his hands poised to grab – and suddenly she was thankful she was dead. _”I think its about time we went upstairs.”_

And just like that, Annie was gone, finding herself, tears streaked cheeks and all, across the street. “Please…” she called to their neighbour as she exited her front door. “I need to get to the hospital! I need to see my friends!” 

Her neighbour, however, looked right through her, putting out her bins. _Oh, no,_ Annie groaned to herself, mournfully. _Oh, they can’t see me! Not again._

Desperately, she tried again, the words falling from her mouth in a mangled, panicked mess. _Excuse me, I need to get to hospital. I need to see my friends._ Again, it was as though she wasn’t there. _Well,_ she _wasn’t,_ not _really…_

So, she’d done what she never did when she’d been alive––what she always should have done––and _ran_.

 

By the time Mitchell lulled past with his Tesco bags, Annie was a quivering mess of energy. She cried out his name, ignoring the cringeworthy way her voice sounded like she’d swallowed sand, and after he’d lowered his sunnies in bemusement––(because _why wouldn’t you_ if your ghost friend, who had not left the pink house since her death, suddenly managed to _rent-a-ghost_ her way under a stream bridge?)––she had unceremoniously thrown herself at him. 

His arms were around her in an instantly, though slightly unsure and as she burrowed her face into his deep purple––and some would say _questionable––_ jacket, Annie suddenly realised why. She’d never touched him before.

_“Annie?”_

His arms tightened around her and though her panic, Annie was most aware of how comforting his hold was. He was solid, and warm to touch. Not warmth in the way a human would be, probably, since, _you know_ , he was dead too, but he was…definitely _there._ “Annie?” he questioned, softer this time, attempting to pry her from his chest long enough to look her in the face, his eyes moving rapidly over her face. She couldn’t meet his eyes, knowing she’d just cry all the more, because Mitchell had such soft, kind eyes, that made her feel like she was the only one that mattered. Though, she was sure he didn’t know it. After all, he was a _vampire_. The universe’s most sinister monster, by all accounts. He couldn’t exactly have _soft, kind_ eyes, now, could he? 

All the same, she was a shivering, sobbing mess–– _well,_ if she were to use _technicalities_ , what she was experiencing was, in fact, one continuous panic attack.

“Annie–– _wha––_ hey, _hey!”_ Mitchell’s voice reached her ears as his hands held her by the shoulders, but somehow she suddenly couldn’t stop seeing it all––the blurring memories taking precedence over reality. Suddenly all she could see was Owen’s red sports car. Making love in the back of Owen’s red sports car… Owen pressing her face against the window of his red sports car…because she’d just smiled at his friends. _Stupid. So, stupid._ How she’d hated that car. _She should have seen it coming._

“Annie! _What happened?_ ” Mitchell exclaimed, giving Annie’s shoulders one sharp shake, watching as she blinked at him, despite her tears, evidently fighting her inner demons. At that, he softened. “That’s it,” he encouraged, sweeping a hand over her face to push back her mangled, damp curls. “Come back to me, Annie.” His hand came to rest at her neck, cupping her jaw to keep her eyes up as recognition sparked back into them. “Hey there,” he greeted with his typical hundred year old Irish charm, as though she was a beautiful flapper dancer he’d wine and dine when he was a young man. “You’re okay.”

“Mitchell? Is it really you?” His voice finally broke through the dark, quicksand of a reverie as she blinked up at him, gripping his middle like a drowned man to a life raft. As she resurfaced, Mitchell sighed heavily with relief, crushing her to his chest. 

“I’m here, Annie… _I have you._ ”

With loud sobs, she thanked him three or four times, her voice muffled against his collarbone, before sniffing noisily and pulling back, suddenly feeling incredibly self aware. 

“ _Shit––_ um––I––I didn’t mean to make your jacket a–all–– _sorry.”_

Mitchell, ever predictable, responded simply with his trademark lop-sided smile, exposing his teeth. “Aw, s’nothin’, Annie.” Within a moment however, taking in her red-rimmed eyes and frazzled, nervous energy, the smile dissipated. “What happened, Annie?”

Staring down at the ground, Annie let Mitchell take most of her weight–– _was_ it weight? Wasn’t she _dead?_ ––as she attempted simply to breathe. He did so without question, even rhythmically running his thumb repeatedly along her forearm where he held her at the elbows. 

“Tully.” Her teeth sunk painfully into her lower lip as it quivered. _No more crying, Annie._

At the name of a male, and a male he didn’t know all too well at that, Mitchell felt his scalp prickle. He _knew_ something had been off about that werewolf. _When will you learn to trust your instincts?!_ he chastised, inwardly. “What. Did. He do?” he asked disjointedly, the words barely escaping his mouth by the way he ground his teeth. 

The words didn’t come for a moment or two, as Annie battled the flashes of what happened as they assaulted her senses all over again, confused in her emotional mind with some of her most uncomfortable human memories––moments she _hadn’t even realised were uncomfortable_ when she was alive. _How_ blind had she been? _and for how long?_

“He… _touched me…_ against my will _…sort of._ ” The words were short and restrained, as though a frog had taken to nesting in her throat. 

Mitchellfelt the monster within him stir, a sudden desire to kill, to _rampage racing through his blood.,_ to _rip_ the werewolf’s balls from his body and then ram them down his good-for-nothing throat.His chest felt tight as he refrained from heaving like a caged animal, trying to keep himself in check so his eyes wouldn’t turn. 

_Calm. Yourself. John._ His inner lectures were almost continuous these days; the human part of him that remained ever desperate for him to cling to what was left of his humanity. _You’ll scare Annie._

All he managed was one curt word, though he let his mouth an _almost_ snarl. _“What?”_

“He grabbed my arm, and I–I thought…I was imagining it, but then he…cornered me.” She swallowed hard, breathing a sigh of relief as her temple made contact with Mitchell’s solid chest because, amongst the floundering reality that continued to surround them, he _anchored_ her. “And…said… _things_.”

“Things?”

She met his gaze for a second before scrunching her eyes shut again, physically trembling at the words she was going to have to repeat. “Said I was a… _corpse…_ giving him mixed signals… Cornered me asking if I could… _feel_ it _…er…_ if he…um…” With hot cheeks and burning eyes, she didn’t finish and for that, Mitchell was silently thankful.

He was silent, but under her hands, she could feel him begin to tremble. When Annie peeked at him, his eyes were closed as tight as hers had been, and he muttered, “ _I’ll kill ‘im,_ ” under his breath. It suddenly hit the gentle, usually sunny, ghost beside him that what she was witnessing, for the first time, was not the Mitchellshe knew, who smiled with soft, kind eyes and laughed with his head thrown back and lived on the wagon. 

No _. This_ was Mitchell the predator.

Curling an arm around Annie’s form, Mitchell made a charge for the pavement, groceries forgotten, guiding her from her hiding place and back up the hill. He held her with a strength that was _almost_ painful, but Annie remained quiet. That is, until he spoke. 

“I’ll look after you, Annie. He will _not_ hurt’ya again, alright?” The words are sure that they helped her resolve to build again. The tears are gone suddenly, but her gait is a slow and unsteady. 

“Thanks, Mitchell.” 

Distracted by sudden worries that she was going to have to face Tully again, she stalled on the pavement. 

_“I can’t,_ Mitchell. I don’t think I can go back in there––“ she began, but was halted by a gesture that took her breath that she didn’t even need for a whole different reason, as Mitchell’s warm hand grasped hers where she had been tugging anxiously at her jumper. 

“––I’m right here with ya’, Annie.”

*

Later, after George had lost his way and shouted awful things, the almost-kiss with Mitchell happened. Under the cover of darkness that night, she found herself playing it back. His selfless honesty, his beautiful close-mouth smile that curled the sides of his mouth, his gentle, _kind_ hazel eyes…his warm plump lips against the corner of her own, for one tiny, fleeting moment, where they’d intended to meet her cheek… His smile still remained even after. He reached up to touch where her lips had met his, licking the lip too. 

“ _I felt that!_ ” he stated with a tone of surprise and intrigue. Her face was surprised, as though she expected him to ignore it. “It was like…kissin’ someone who’d just come in from outside.”

Annie wasn’t at all sure what was going on, first the handholding, now kissing––even if it _was_ just meant for her cheek. She felt something stir in her chest, albeit her _dead_ chest, as he walked away. Without consideration, she’d called him back. 

“So, you’re not… You don’t think I’m…” _God,_ what was she _thinking?_

But there was no halting it now. “You’re what, Annie?”

“… _repulsive?_ ” 

Mitchell bulked, instantly sitting back down on the floor, but this time in front of her, trapping her face between his hands. “Annie Sawyer,” his tone was slow and quiet and Annie was suddenly aware she’d never heard such a serious tone from John Mitchell before. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare! _You hear me_?” As if to make his point, his thumb capturing her lower lip, testing its temperature. She was cold, though not as cold to him as she would be to a living creatures touch. Since he had nothing but _borrowed_ blood in his system as an _undead_ creature, he was cool too. According to human medicine, his body temperature alone should kill him…but, of course, such research areas had yet to be discovered, thank god. 

Touching her lip felt like touching a sculpture made of snow, as she wasn’t as solid as ice, but soft to touch, almost as her human self would have been, only far too cold…and she… _tingled._ While he’d come across ghosts in his lifetime, he’d never touched one… That is, until Annie. 

He tried not to dwell on the way her lip had felt against his own; after an initial shock in temperature, she left a tingle behind that was absolutely fascinating. 

(He also tried not to well on the fact he wouldn’t mind experiencing it again.)

“By the sounds of it, Annie, you have spent too long letting _bastards_ like Tully dictate how you feel about y’self.” He softened the blow that his strict tone may give my assuring he gave her his best smile, his hand dropping down to his side. “So, no more, alright?”

 

Later, as Mitchell went to bed, and both wolves were out, Annie roamed through the house, as she usually did, tidying away mugs of tea and coffee, just so she’d have some to make more with. She tries to read in her chair, but finds that Mitchell’s lips are all she can think of, as her eyes keep losing their place on the page. 

“This is stupid,” she whispered harshly to herself, thumping the book down in her lap. “It’s Mitchell! _Mitchell!_ Your _friend._ Your _vampire_ friend. _Stop._ ”

She had chastised herself aloud because she had always had a habit of talking to herself, all through her life. Just like who she still rambled when she was happy…or nervous…or uncomfortable…or…well… _anything._ It appeared death had changed little of her faults at all.  

What she hadn’t expected at such an hour, however, was a reply. 

“Have fantasies, are we?” 

All Annie’s hairs stood on end then, despite her body being very much _not really_ there. _It couldn’t be._ She froze in her chair, gripping the arms of it and not moving one inch, hoping somehow that would make what she heard suddenly become a figment or her imagination––a nightmare. 

His smug, smiling face poked round the corner of her door then, all friendly and unassuming, as though it _wasn’t_ 3am and he _wasn’t_ basically a psychopathic rapist… Well, _sort of._

“Tully. Leave. Me. _Alone_.” _What kind of response was that?!_ She screamed at herself, inwardly this time. 

She really should have seen this coming. 

“Annie,” he chastised her. as though she was five. “That’s no way to talk to a friend and house guest.” He sauntered past her to the window, grinning at the way she curled her legs into the chair so his leg wouldn’t touch them on the way past. “We were getting on so well this morning, but you _had_ to go and get sensitive.” She turned back to her and she instantly went to leave the room. “And got that bloody leech involved.”

At mention of Mitchell, she paused in the doorway, her shoulders tensing at his words. “Mitchell is a _good man… Unlike some._ ”

The werewolf was suddenly laughing, as though she had just sad something utterly implausible. She bit back a snarl. She _hated_ being treated like a fool.

“I knew it.” Arrogantly, he then took a seat in _her_ chair, swinging his left foot to rest on his right knee, nonchalantly inspecting the room rather than looking at her. “I _knew_ you held a torch for ‘im.” 

Annie frowned. _Her?_ Hold a torch for _Mitchell? What?_ No. She loved Owen… _Didn’t she?_

_“Get out!”_ Annie exclaimed quietly, not wanting to wake Mitchell. She knew, if she did, then the sight of Tully like this would then wake the monster within him too. 

Tully through her book at her feet, and she realised too late the mistake she made in bending down on instinct to pick it up. He suddenly had her by the throat against the doorframe, and while she didn’t choke for air as a human would, she found she was choking out of habit, and squirming at the pain it caused. 

This was different from the previous morning, at the fridge, she realised. Then, she’d been completely focussed on the situation and therefore her panic transported her to safety. In this moment, however, he’d caught her unawares, so been able to grab her. Now, she wasn’t sure if she could get away. “Get off me! _Let go!_ ” 

To her horror, his hand had found its way to gripping her thigh as hard to her could, his thumb right at the junction between where her thigh ended and… _more intimate_ anatomy began. She swallowed what, if she were human, would have been bile as he smoothed his thumb over her crotch through her leggings.

“You really are very chilly, aren’t you? I wonder though… I reckon a bit of a _real man_ could get you all… _hot and bothered._ ” He then went to try and put his hand under her top––the top she’d _died_ in––the top she was _stuck_ in. She wriggled away form his touch desperately, knowing she could not allow this to happen, because if she could never change these clothes, she could be forever haunted by what he did to her in them. She looked at him with hated and disgust as her bit his lip and chuckled, groping her at his leisure, not even _rushing._

_No, no. No. Not in death,_ she shouted, inwardly. _She had dealt with men’s shit in life enough alone._ Mitchell’s words from earlier rung though her mind as she fought back harder. _Not. in. death. too._ Desperately, she willed Mitchell just a room away to wake. Picturing him in his usual sleeping pose, one arm thrown out across the bed, sheets only up to his abdomen, she–– _almost––_ prayed _._

_“Mitchell!”_ she was about to cry as loud as could, with her burning eyes clamped shut and her aching throat, knowing she was going to have to be as loud as possible to wake him, because he slept like the dead––no pun intended. 

However, she suddenly found she didn’t need to. 

Before his name was ever fully out of her mouth, she was stuck by the feeling of cotton under her body. Throwing her eyes open, she found herself curled in the metal position, on her side, on a bed… _Mitchell’s bed._ His arm was outstretched just above her head, over the top of the pillow, his–– _unclothed_ ––ribcage just centimetres from her face as she faced his side. 

Relief flooded her senses as she suddenly felt such an overwhelming urge to cry. 

If she had _thought_ she had been relived to see him after the incident that morning, she did not have _words_ for what she felt now. 

His skin radiated, that _almost_ human, warmth, and while she didn't feel the cold since her death, the craving for the comfort heat brought with it was constant, now being no different, as her entire being shook with anxiety and shame from what had just occurred. Her face nuzzled his bare side before she had ever thought about it, which–– _of course_ ––woke the dark vampire with a start. 

_Idiot, Annie!_ she scolded herself, instantly, feeling guilty. _You’re like snow, remember?_

_“Annie?”_ Mitchell murmured in an almost whisper––a tone she’d never heard from him before. Somehow it made him seem more human, and she almost sighed with sorrow at its gentleness. _Oh, Mitchell._ “Whatcha’ doin’ here?” 

“I…” she stammered, also whispering, considering her options. If she told him about Tully, he’d go right after him, get all _monster-y,_ and then this moment, this _sanctuary_ that was his room would be ruined. _Tell him tomorrow,_ her thoughts sighed, persuasively. _Tully would never dare come in here. He’s all talk. He’d never dare wake a sleeping vampire._

“I’m frightened.” The words weren’t a lie, after all. “Tully.”

As it turns out, that was all she’d needed to say. Mitchell instantly sighed, as though almost in pain, while moving to pick up the duvet so she could join him properly. She curled up like a child again, but this time cocooned in warm, her head now on the adjacent pillow. 

Mitchell’s eyes squinted with sleep in the almost-black––his curtains weren’t drawn so the light of the almost-full moon shone in––as he regarded her. No doubt her noticed her wide, panicked, frigid form or the tears shining in her eyes, but, like the gentleman of the 19th Century he would always be, no word was spoken about them. 

Instead, he leant over and kissed her forehead with the tenderness or a lover and, with that, Annie wept. This time, unlike they had been that morning, her tears were quiet; sorrowful. Slowly, the pillow went from absorbing her tears to Mitchell’s collarbone doing it instead, but he made no complaint, his arm holding her tightly to him. 

It was only after her tears had subsided and she was left just hiccuping everyone once in a while, that he spoke. 

“Did he…?”  The words weren’t there, and Annie was grateful. They weren’t needed. 

Swallowing and wiping her cheeks, Annie decided to simply answer honestly. “Yeah… He um–– _tried._ ”

To his credit, Mitchell didn’t storm out as she had expected he would, but his body did go rigid. Gently, she found herself begging for him to stay with her, and to her surprise, he did. 

“I’m right here for’ya, Annie,” Mitchell whispered as his eyes closed slowly, echoing his words from that morning. Though, his lip quirked up in a malicious smirk as he added: “It’s late. I’ll kill him tomorrow.”

She leant on her elbow, reaching to weep his curls away from his sleepy eyes, almost like a mother might, before she, in term, placed a delicate, cool kiss on his forehead. At the gesture, she could have sworn she felt him physically sag and sigh––a contented sigh. 

“I’m right here for _you,_ ” she revealed, laying her head down on the pillow beside his, letting her eyes drift over his ridiculous curls and equally _ridiculous_ eyelashes, smiling for the first time in what felt like years. “And yes––please do.” 


End file.
